Primary Messages

Our voice has a distinctive manner, tone, and style that should be consistent over time. Every message should be tailored to the intended audience, but all messages should always retain the brand's natural, authentic voice.

Life and legal

You have a legal ally designed around your life—we'll shine a light on the areas of your life that intersect with the law and guide you down the path to resolution, explaining things in life terms, not legal ones.

Remember, messages are not copy. Messages are what we want to say. Copy is how we say it.

Clarity and resolution

With every interaction, you'll see the entire picture clearly and feel empowered to move forward knowing that the legal stuff is in check.

When you know our brand's key messages and apply one or several voice attributes, it makes for consistent and authentic communications.

Bridging

No matter where you are in the process, we'll meet you there. We invite you to come along the journey with us, or take a more hands-off approach, if you prefer. No matter what, you'll walk away armed with new knowledge and confidence.

Good copy comes when we can uniquely position ourselves to our customers, starting with our promise and values, then applying our voice.

Secondary Messages

We don't stop

We evolve with the needs of our customers and work tirelessly to design experiences that are life-like, not legal-like.

We build relationships

Technology powers our services, but it's our passion for helping customers thrive and dedicated attorney network that set us apart.

Fighting the fight

We fight the battles that need to be won so quality, affordable legal help is available to all individuals, families, and businesses.

Simplify & engage

We translate the complex into understandable, interesting, and fun experiences.

Messaging Principles

It's not us and them

Our customers are our partners. Let's make them feel like one. Avoid talking at people. Use language like "let's" and "we" throughout our experience so it sounds like we're in this together.

Relate and empathize, avoid negativity

We should do our best to help our customers understand that we know what they're going through. The excitement (and stress) around starting a new business. The sadness associated with losing a loved one. But don't go too far down that path with them—relate, but be optimistic and solution-oriented. We love the business we're in, even if our customers want to avoid it. That's why we're here—to help people get through the red tape in their lives.

It's never scary

Just as we want to avoid sounding negative, we also want to avoid using scare tactics to get people to take action and buy something from us. Avoid saying things like "You can try to do it yourself, but..." or "If you don't do X...bad things can happen." Most people are timid enough when they come to us for help. We're here to reassure and guide them, not scare them more.

Make it fun

Think about the brands you love and how delighted you are when they take the mundane and make it engaging. Remember, most people deal with legal issues because they have to or know they should, not because they necessarily want to (but we're changing that!). Think about how you can make it unexpectedly fun.

Speak as you would to a friend

We don't always need to sound so formal. Imagine you're speaking with a friend. You wouldn't start a conversation with "I just sent you your paperwork." You'd ease them into it to help set up what you'd like to communicate.

Think overall experience, not individual touch point

If you find yourself having to explain too many things in one place, chances are you need to spread some of that information out. Think about what the customer will experience, from the minute they decide to work with us to finalizing their paperwork and beyond.

Don't get too cute

While it's fun to infuse language that keeps things light, too much can get really annoying, really fast. And it's not unique. We're optimistic, but not cheeky. Have fun with language, but remember that we're dealing with serious stuff and credibility is important. Make customers smile, not roll their eyes.

Define, but not as a dictionary would

Education is a big part of our brand, but we don't want to sound academic and/or boring. Remember, life terms, not legal ones. Think of creative ways to explain a service or process. Make fun analogies and use real-life examples.

Avoid “law firm”

The last thing we want people to think is that we're an old school law firm. We embrace the fact that we're not a law firm at all. Yes, we connect customers to like-minded firms all over the country and even own one in the U.K. There's a time and place to tell that story. The important thing is that we want to be mindful of how much we say "legal" so we're not always reminding people of what's typically a bad experience (in their minds).

Don't use “lawyer”

Use "attorney" (and make sure it says "independent attorney" where appropriate, for legal reasons) as it often perceived more favorably than "lawyer."

Services, not products

The term "product" makes sense to us in the tech world, but customers don't see what we offer as products. Avoid using "product" in external communications. Other options are "service," "solution," or "offering" (and make sure to run it by Legal as context matters here!).

Self-guided, not DIY

None of our services are truly do-it-yourself (if they were, our customers would be going to courthouses to get forms to manually fill out themselves). Our attorneys worked hard on our questionnaires so that our customers never have to touch a legal form. So let's give ourselves some credit! We have self-guided questionnaires, not do-it-yourself ones. You can select a self-guided service, or choose one with attorney help. No matter what, you're never alone.

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